The Interviews
by netrat
Summary: SEQUEL TO "THE AD". FINISHED. Dumbledore is interviewing the latest candidates for the DADA job - most of which would make Lockhart look good!


_You know, I thought I'd consider myself lucky if a) I managed to get one review on this and b) if one person apart from me found it funny. And now ... 4 brand-new reviews after only two days, and positive ones to boot! You people rock!_

_Special thanks to Princess Ligh and nolEE for reviewing, and to Sailor Sol and Lemon_Drops for the encouragement and ideas!_

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. She does. If you have to ask who "she" is, go read the books instead. – I do own Leastwing, Volkova, and Goodmann. Not that anyone else would want to go near them anyway.

**The Interviews  
(Sequel to The Ad)**

Albus Dumbledore, sitting in his office, was popping another lemon drop into his mouth as he thoughtfully read this year's applications for the DADA job. After what Miss Elliot, the Muggle Studies teacher, insisted on calling an "extensive advertising effort", he finally had three DADA appliactions to choose from for the coming school year. Actually, there were four applicants, not counting Severus. Dumbledore had already excluded Miss Amalie Ryan, a muggle-born witch from Sussex, on the grounds that according to her course outline, she planned to teach Defense Against Lawyers, Marketing Assistants, and Elementary School Teachers. While Dumbledore had no doubt that defense classes covering said groups would benefit the students, he had to set his priorities, and, as last year's Triwizard Tournament had unfortunately proven, the first priority had to be the fight against Voldemort and his servants. He had trouble imagining Voldemort to attack the school with an army of marketing assistants. Surely even the Dark Lord would not be that inhuman.

Which left three applicants. Minerva had scheduled their personal interviews, and applicant number one, Mrs Jessica Volkova, was due to appear during the next ten minutes. If she was punctual. Dumbledore, who preferred other recruitment methods than a series of standardised interviews, was feeling slightly expectant and nervous himself. Getting teachers had never really been a problem, and there hadn't been a formal process for it either – you just contacted the people you wanted (Hogwarts alumni, for the most part) and they were honoured to accept. Or you took up the ones who wouldn't get a job anywhere else, like Sybil and Severus, if you thought they were worth it. The only exception to the normal process were the Muggle Studies teachers, but he didn't have to recruit those himself. Arabella was friends with the headmaster of a muggle university and kept her eyes open, approaching graduates who wouldn't object to spending a year in a remote castle, teaching students who could make things fly but had never used a fellytone. Dumbledore quite enjoyed those young, fresh faces. They rarely stayed longer than a year, and the muggle inventions they introduced were often remarkable. Lemon drops, for example. Now _there_ was something Lucius Malfoy and his pure-blooded ancestors hadn't been able to come up with in a thousand years!

The flames in the fireplace shot upwards, and seconds later a woman emerged, brushing dust and sooth off her robes. Dumbledore neatly ticked the little box that said "punctual" on his sheet. Miss Elliot had kindly provided him with some standardised form that should make it easier for him to evaluate the candidates. While the form was pretty and well-thought-out, Dumbledore considered it somewhat incomplete, and had already made several adjustments. Apparently the University of Warwick didn't need to ask its applicants whether they could play Quidditch, were Death Eaters, or had graduated from the See-no-evil-hear-no-evil School of Fudge (to use a most delightfully accurate phrase coined by Minerva).

Jessica Volkova was a short and plump kind of woman, with curly hair that had been dyed a pale blonde. Durmstrang alumni, married to a Durmstrang professor, chairwoman of the Durmstrang Fun-Loving Witches Association ... Which question would break the ice?

"Do you like it at Durmstrang, Mrs Volkova?"

"Merlin's Beard, yes! It's been my home, more or less, ever since I was six. It's the best place on earth! – Although Hogwarts probably isn't _too_ bad, either", she added after a pause. "Better than Beauxbatons School of Cosmetics and Manicure at any rate." At the mentioning of the French school, the broad smile disappeared momentarily from her round figures, only to immediately light up again.

Dumbledore rarely thought of Hogwarts as_ not _too_ bad a place_, but then again, a little local patriotism was only to be expected. "Would you not object to staying away from home – and from your husband – then?"

"Well, there's still the floo ..." She chuckled. "Besides, Maxim always gets all excited if I'm away for more than a week. I spent last March at my sister's, and when I got back – he made me such a welcome – we had wine and oysters, and poor professor Stravinsky spent all night knocking at the wall, he said he couldn't stand the noises we made ..."

That was a little more than Dumbledore had wanted to know, and he seized the opportunity when she paused for breath to introduce a more business-like topic. "You wrote that you have experience with the Dark Arts?"

"Oh, yes, all that stuff. It's on the syllabus, you know."

He knew and wasn't at all happy about it. "May I ask what you, personally, think of Durmstrang's policy to teach children the Dark Arts? – I assure you that your answer won't leave this room", he added, after she frowned thoughtfully.

Her face lit up again. "Oh, it's no secret, really. I'm always arguing with Maxim, you know. I tell him: _You can't just teach these little kids the Imperius curse, they are only eleven!_ _It's asking for trouble, _I tell him_. Teach them at age thirteen and they'll have a far better grasp of what to use it for, plus it'll come in handy for learning the Cruciatus curse. _That's a tricky one, you know", she added.

Dumbledore had trouble to keep from staring open-mouthedly at this woman who considered the Unforgivable curses merely "tricky", not a crime against human nature itself. "You are aware that the Unforgivable curses are, as the name suggests, strictly forbidden?" he finally managed, but Jessica Volkova only grinned.

"Yes, and so's faking one's apparition licence! It's really not that big a deal. Sure, You-know-who used it to torture those poor muggles, but you can have a lot of fun with Imperius, too. Do you know how I fell in love with Maxim? I was just sixteen, and the girls from my dormitory put Imperius on me and made me go and kiss Professor Volkov – Maxim, that is – in front of the whole assembly. It was love at first kiss, and we married right after I graduated. A little Imperius never did no-one no harm, I always say."

***

Dumbledore hadn't completely recovered from Mrs Volkova's visit when the next candidate popped out of the fireplace. He was a short man with greying hair and a somewhat disshelved beard that looked as if he constantly ran his fingers through it. Dumbledore, who upon noticing the beard had already ticked the "respectable, well-dressed" column on his sheet, leaned back in his chair, just as the applicant stretched out his hand and said, grinning: "I'm your man for the job – a _good_ _man_, to be precise."

Dumbledore's face must have shown his confusion, for the candidate felt compelled to add: "_Good_ _man_, you see? That was a joke. 'Cause my name is Goodmann, Trevor Goodmann. Although I prefer to be called Q for short."

Dumbledore was slightly taken aback, but it still took him only one second to see the fault in this chain of sentences. "There is no Q anywhere in your name."

"There isn't", the man agreed, sitting down opposite Dumbledore. "It's from – _James Bond_, do you know that? A series of muggle movies?" Dumbledore remembered from the man's papers that he was muggle-born. Miss Elliot had recently asked his permission to rent something called a VeCeA and some – videos, was it? With films on them? He couldn't remember the titles, though. "James Bond is some sort of heroic figure", Goodmann explained. "And he has this assistant named Q, who is practically a wizard, who invents all his weapons and cars and everything."

"So, Professor – Q", Dumbledore said dubiously. „I take it from your papers that you are currently teaching at Hagenfield College, and also working at Wizarding Technology Laboratories in Germany. You seem to be a very busy wizard."

"I am, I am." He nodded to himself, as if two confirmations weren't enough, and added. "But don't you worry, I'll have more than enough time to teach next year. I've already handed in my resignation with Hagenfield. Those amateurs do not understand my work at all, let alone appreciate it. Can you believe it? They refused my request for a cauldron! Stupid bureaucrats."

"I can see how it would be difficult to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts without a cauldron", Dumbledore said cautiously, not sure what to make of the man's words.

"Believe me, it is! And just because I'd ruined three of the school's ones during the previous month. There are casualties in every war, I always say."

Dumbledore had a sudden vision of Neville Longbottom with a disshelved beard, filling out order forms. "Anyway", Goodmann continued, "let me show you one of my inventions that I plan on teaching the students about." Dumbledore leaned forward. The course outline Goodmann had sent him had been most intriguing, mostly because he hadn't been able to understand a single word of it. There hadn't been much mentioning of wild creatures, that was sure. Most of the writing seemed to have consisted of – technical specifications?

"Like, take the foe-glass." Suddenly Goodmann was in teacher-mode, and Dumbledore inadvertely found himself ipaying attention. He ticked the column saying "good teaching style". „Take it, then forget it. It's big, right? And you can't carry it around, right? And if your foes know any good concealment spells that work on stationary objects, you're screwed, right?" Dumbledore just nodded and resisted the urge to write Goodman's words down. "So what you really really need, is – this. Look." Beaming, he pointed at what Dumbledore had assumed to be a muggle wristwatch that surely wouldn't work at Hogwarts. "I call it my foe-watch, see? 'Cause it looks like a muggle watch, and I use it to watch my foes?" Leaning closer, Dumbledore saw that the big hand, standing on the twelve, had "H. Thornton" on it in miniscule writing. "Stupid bureaucrat Thornton, back at the University", Goodmann explained, following his eye. "See the little hand on the two? That means he's far away right now. In fact, I happen to know that he took a vacation. Went to Honolulu for the weekend."

"Very interesting, that invention of yours", Dumbledore said. "Have you patented it yet?"

Suddenly, Goodmann looked crestfallen. "No – you see, this is an actual muggle watch, I modified it – the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts people would love to get their hands on me, you know? – but it _is_ a brilliant invention, if I say so myself."

"I do not doubt that, Professor Goodmann. May I ask you a few more questions regarding the subject you wish to teach here?"

"Of course."

"What would you fight a vampire with?"

Again, Goodmann's face lit up. "Oh, I invented a bomb especially for that occasion – we had one of those bloodsuckers in the basement at WizTech, you see – worked wonders!"

Goodmann's papers had included a detailed description of the event, with a photograph even. On the back was written: _Bloody nuisance vampire gets his rightful desserts, that will learn him to go complaining about "strange smells" coming from my lab!_

"How would you deal with a kelpie?"

Goodmann frowned. "Never met one, to be honest, but my bomb might work just fine –"

"With a giant man-eating spider?" "Well, my bomb –" His voice trailed off.

"With a werewolf?" "Bomb. Definitely." Goodmann beamed. "There's garlic in it, you know. Werewolves hate garlic."

Dumbledore, who'd seen Remus eat garlic bread at the staff table during the course of an entire year, very much doubted that. Still, he smiled and asked the final question.

"How would you fight a dragon?"

"Um – with a _big_ bomb?"

***

"Mr Leastwing, isn't it?" Dumbledore asked and monitored for the last candidate to take a seat. He was thin and black-clad, almost as tall as Severus, but less intimidating. Thank Merlin – some of the children, especially Neville Longbottom, would be frightened out of their wits if he introduced another Grumpy Potions Master to the school. The stranger looked at Dumbledore with polite interest, fingers playing with a quill he'd drawn from his pocket. When he had the headmaster's attention, he slid a neat black folder across the table. "My papers, in case you wish to see the originals."

Dumbledore took the folder and looked at a few random pages. He already knew all he was interested in knowing about Edrad Leastwing – Beauxbatons alumni (though he'd spent two of his seven years at Hogwarts; unfortunately, Dumbledore, who usually prided himself on his memory, had no recollections of a Leastwing), assistant Charms teacher at Beauxbatons for almost two years, freelance vampire hunter afterwards. 

_Beauxbatons School of Cosmetics and Manicure_. He chuckled – inwardly, he thought –, but he must have voiced his thoughts, for the young man frowned and said stiffly: "I assure you that everything you can learn at Hogwarts you can learn at Beauxbatons, too. And before you ask, I am not gay."

One of not-too-many times in his life, Dumbledore was speechless.

"Edrad", he finally managed, "that's quite an unusual name. I don't think I've ever heard it."

The young man smiled politely and bowed his head. „It's a family name."

"Did you like your teaching job, Mr Leastwing?"

"Yes, very much so. I would have stayed longer, but I had to return  to England on my ninteenth birthday. You see, my parents – there was an accident –" His voice trailed off and Dumbledore noticed the look on his face. There was grief, doubtlessly, but also something else ... Maybe his parents hadn't died a natural death. He had returned in 1982, only two years after Voldemort's downfall. Some of the Death Eaters had chosen to literarily go in a blaze. There had been deaths, even after the war ... the First War, as people were starting to call it ...

"Are you working for the Ministry now?"

"Occasionally."

"Then you surely know our esteemed minister, and probably Mr Malfoy, too?" Dumbledore was watching the young man closely. There was the merest curling of the lips at the mentioning of Fudge, and when Lucius' name fell, a gleam in the young man's eyes that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "Who doesn't?", Leastwing asked lightly. „Mr Malfoy is a rather public person, after all."

"Which House were you in at Hogwarts?" Dumbledore asked suddenly, thinking he knew the answer, but the young man simply – and quite proudly – said: "Ravenclaw."

"You look rather ... Slytherin to me", Dumbledore said bluntly, hoping that Leastwing wouldn't take it to mean an insult.

"I had a number of Slytherin friends", Leastwing acknowledged, without seeming in the least offended. "We Ravenclaws tend to get on well with everybody. In fact, the Sorting Hat even considered putting me in Slytherin, but it said I lacked ambition."

One last question – the interviews had taken up more time already than he'd planned: "What do you think of Gilderoy Lockhart's books?"

The man frowned. "I know that Lockhart used to teach here, but to be frank – nothing at all. I only read one of his works – _Journey with Vampires_ or some such title – professional interest, you may say – but the stories are very far-fetched, especially considering that it's Lockhart we're talking about. Imagine him going to Transylvania where mirrors are banned."

Fully satisfied, Dumbledore nodded. "You seem by far the most experienced candidate we've had so far", he said. The man beamed with what he could only call, silently, "modest pride". A true Ravenclaw. "Min– my deputy will call you soon."

After Leastwing had left, he popped another lemon drop into his mouth, satisfied that the school's unlucky string of DADA teachers seemed to finally have come to an end.

However, in the back of his mind, the little wheels kept on spinning. For some reason, he felt that he was missing something. Something important.

Leastwing, Leastwing ... It really bothered him that he couldn't remember that particular Ravenclaw.

Edrad Leastwing ...

The little wheels made a clicking sound as they touched.

Dealing with the mirror of Erised, not to mention Tom Marvolo Riddle, gave you something of a feeling for anagrams and names spelled backwards.

Dumbledore sighed. Given the situation, there was really no way he could let Dawid Lestrange, son of two Death Eaters, teach at Hogwarts.

Not if he saw it fit to hide his name.

Love it? Hate it? Please R&R!


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